... in the Limbaugh Letter, July 2021
Quote:"The future of the auto industry is electric. There's no turning back" -- Joe Biden Obama, zooming around in an electric F-150 pickup ("This sucker's quick"), pitching his $174 billion electric vehicle[EV] "investment plan" for sales rebates, tax incentives, and grants to states. Fox Business, 5/18/21
Quote:"We need to jam on the accelerator here. We're going to double down on our R&D in the technologies that will make EVs easier to manufacture, easier to deploy,easier for the American people to access." -- Jennifer Granholm, Biden Energy Secretary, NBC News, 6/18/21
Quote:"I see autoworkers building the next generation of electric vehicles, and electricians installing nationwide for 500,000 charging stations along our highways."-- Joe Biden, on the "moral and economic imperative" of so-called clean energy, climate summit speech, 4/22/21
Here we have liberal wishful thinking as federal policy. The truth is, electric cars represent less than 2 percent of the U.S. market, according to QZ, and a mere 3 percent globally. "Despite ... a record 2 million or so EVs sold worldwide last year, only one in 250 cars on the road is electric." No matter, Government and Big Auto are working hand-in-glove, plug-in-socket, to force on the market what the market clearly doesn't want. All greased by billions in taxpayer cash and subsidies.
But let's look at the "moral imperative" coming from these people, shall we? The moral preening and self-regard from Leftists "saving the planet" from eeevil fossil fuels has entire generations -- Millennials and younger -- mesmerized by fantasy. They envision a Disney-World-like "sustainable" planet in which everyone drives a Tesla fueled by energy as pristine as morning dew, while draped in high fashion and surrounded by chic Scandinavian design. It is amazing hubris, combined with colossal naivete and ignorance. All their "clean energy" dreams are built on filth, deprivation, forced child labor, and lies. Not to mention planet-stripping pollution.
For all the globaloney about "net-zero" carbon emissions, the typical electric car contains six times more minerals than a gas-powered car, according to the International Energy Agency [IEA]. At the top of the list: the minerals in EVs' rechargeable lithium-ion batteries. These ingredients don't arrive via a mouse click, Uber, or Amazon delivery. They have to be dug out of the earth, often in very ugly ways, in poverty-stricken lands, with great pain and misery,far away from the attention of the EVs-will-bring-utopia crowd.
Cobalt. Some 70 percent of the world's cobalt is mined in the Democratic Republic of the Congo [DRC]-- which is reliant on child labor, much of it reportedly forced. Yes, the Left's "sustainable" and "clean-energy" electric vehicles are built on the backs of children of color -- African kids who may accurately be called slaves. According to The [UK] DailyMail, 40,000 children work daily in the mines of the DRC. CBS News detail: "There were children digging in trenches and laboring in lakes -- hunting for treasure in a playground from hell. The work is hard enough for an adult man, but is unthinkable for a child... [C]hildren lug heavy sacks of cobalt to be washed in rivers. From as early as four, they can pick it out of a pile. Even those too young to work -- dust-covered infants clinging to their mothers and playing on the dirty ground -- spend much of the day breathing in toxic fumes."
In "The Dark Side of Congo's Cobalt Rush", The New Yorker reports: Teenage boys often work perilous shifts navigating rickety shafts... Children who work in the mines are often drugged, in order to suppress hunger." They dig the metal from the earth "using only hand tools at great risk to their health and safety, human rights groups warn," according to The New York Times. "[A]utomakers and other manufacturers have committed to eliminating [this] cobalt from their supply chains,and have also said they will develop batteries that decrease, or do away with, cobalt altogether. But that technology is still in development."
Sure they're "committed". Every few months, some mainstream outlet will put together an investigative piece on cobalt child labor atrocities, and it always ends with the U.S. manufacturers hand-waving the problem away, promising they don't use those sources anymore and besides, they are unaware of any problems. And then the supply chain reverts to status quo, until the next investigative piece. Because what matters is that the cobalt gets into the electric cars, so liberals can feel good about themselves and their superior love for the planet.
In December 2019, International Rights Advocates sued multiple companies, including Tesla, for the maiming and deaths of multiple child miners. The lawsuit is ongoing.
Lithium. The United States is blessed with some of the world's largest lithium reserves, according to The New York Times. But we have only one mine. Nevada's Silver Peak produces just 5,000 tons of lithium a year, less than 2 percent of the world supply. Instead of using our own resources, U.S. importers exploit the lax environmental laws in Argentina, Bolivia, and Chile. Lithium mining uses enormous amounts of water in areas that can little afford it, but EV pushers don't lose a wink of sleep over that. On 5/17/21, TelecomTV described what other countries go through so American liberals can drive with net-zero carbon pride:
Traditional lithium extraction is an energy-intensive and polluting process involving the widespread use of toxic chemicals, including tens of thousands of tons of sulfuric acid, leaving a detritus of hazardous waste and massive spoil heaps that can affect localities for generations after mining has ceased. Huge quantities of water are needed for the extraction process and thousands of gallons per minute are used and polluted. Contaminated groundwater is a byproduct of the process and spoliation can endure for as long as 300 years.
According to Wired, "In Chile's Salar de Atacama, mining activities consumed 65 percent of the region's water... [A]s occurred in Tibet ... toxic chemicals ... leak[ed] from the evaporation pools into the water supply. These include ... hydrochloric acid... In Argentina's Salar de Hombre Muerto, locals claim that lithium operations have contaminated streams." But hey, electric cars will save the earth.
Nickel. Elon Musk says Tesla would give a "giant contract" to any companies that could mine nickel "efficiently and in an environmentally sensitive way." But in the meantime, automakers will deal with whoever they have to. Nickel, the most expensive material in electric vehicles after cobalt, is processed far and away from prying U.S. environmental regulators: in Indonesia. IDTechEx reports that two nickel mining companies in Indonesia use deep-sea disposal for millions of tons of raw waste material. "Many automakers are aware of the environmental concerns in nickel supply and that it can undermine the environmentally friendly message of the electric vehicle." Really? Polluting the ocean could undermine the environmentally friendly message? Only if the public finds out. And nobody backing the Green new Deal is talking.
Meanwhile, Reuters reports that "The U.S.government ... became the largest shareholder in mining investment firm TechMet, which controls a Brazilian nickel project, a Rwandan tungsten mine, and is a major investor in a Canadian battery recycler. Washington also funds research into Canadian cobalt projects and rare earths projects in Malawi..." But who cares about Malawi, so long as Joe Biden can buzz around in his electric F-150.
Coal. EV fans stick their fingers to their ears when it comes to the facts about what happens when they stick their EVs' plugs into the wall. "Coal tends to be the critical factor," Jeremy Michalek, professor of engineering at Carnegie mellon University, told The New York Times. "If you've got electric cars in Pittsburgh that are being plugged in at night and leading nearby coal plants to burn more coal to charge them, then the climate benefits won't be as great, and you can get even more air pollution.
Clean-energy types despise coal and are determined to shut down all U.S coal burning plants -- but with no coal, there is no recharging, no cobalt-lithium-nickel batteries, and no emission-free (ha) electric travel. Alternative energy turns out to utterly rely on fossil fuel.
And electric cars are notoriously less green, overall, than gasoline-powered vehicles. According to The [UK] Guardian, "The extra materials and energy involved in manufacturing a lithium-ion battery mean that, at present, the carbon emissions associated with producing an electric car are higher than those for a vehicle running on petrol or diesel -- by as much as 38 percent, according to some calculations. Until the electricity in national grids is entirely renewable, recharging the battery will involve a degree of dependence on coal or gas-fired power stations."
Dangerous Waste. According to The New York Times, "While 99 percent of lead-acid batteries are recycled in the United States, estimated recycling rates for lithium-ion batteries are about 5 percent." And lithium-ion batteries not disposed of properly can be dangerous. "Throwing away a battery can seem harmless, but they are ticking time bombs in the recycling and waste world," said Tulsa Recycle Transfer Facility's Robert Pickens, after damaging fire due to "recycling contamination from a lithium-ion battery." In California, a recycling center fire from a lithium-ion battery caused $8.5 million in damage, leading to the center's operator to call lithium-ion battery fires an "existential threat" for the municipal recycling sector.
So these great virtuous EV environmentalists are actually damaging a top environmental precept. Recycling hardest hit.
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Joe Biden campaigned on producing electric vehicle materials right here in the good ole USA. Two weeks before the election, he promised miners he would support domestic production of EV materials, according to Reuters. "Building back better involves miners," celebrated Biden supporter Rich Nolan, head of the National Mining Association, "The Biden campaign understands the need for domestic supply chains."
Well oops. By this May,the Biden Regime had done a 180, telling Reuters the U.S. will rely on "ally countries" to supply the bulk of the EV metals. Instead, "to placate environmentalists," the Administration will focus on processing battery parts domestically -- "a blow to U.S. miners who had hoped Biden would rely primarily on domestically sourced metals."
"It's not that hard to dig a hole," said an unnamed Biden source, defending the about-face. "What's hard is getting that stuff out and getting it to the processing facilities. That's what the U.S. government is focused on."
You mean, it's not that hard to make African children dig a hole -- so you can preen about how environmentally friendly you are. Do tell us more about "environmental justice".